My outdoor adventures in the Last Frontier

A Big PT Update

I’ve been doing PT for about two months now, and it has been such a positive experience this time around! As I mentioned in this post, I spent a lot of time during my PT appointments doing hip strengthening exercises and Pilates. Once my PT determined that my hips and abs were strong enough, I started running again too!

Although not outside like this yet, because Anchorage is still under a foot of snow.

Returning to running has been so emotional and terrifying. I feel like I can’t get too excited or optimistic because if it once again doesn’t work, I’m going to be devastated. However, it also isn’t going to exactly be easy and pain free at first. Every major milestone I make in PT makes me sore near my SI joint, and it goes away once my body gets used to the new movement and my abs figure out what to do. So after the first week back at running, which consisted of three days of running 30 second intervals on the treadmill for 10 minutes, I was feeling tentatively optimistic about running but also not willing to let myself fully feel like I was going to be able to keep it up for long.

I haven’t had pain while running yet, or even afterwards. But when I went hiking last weekend in the snow, I was in a lot of pain during the end of the hike and afterwards felt super sore on my entire right side of my pelvis. Last week at PT I let her know that I had been in a lot of pain since the hike, and she took a look at my alignment. I guess during my initial intake on day one she noticed that the right side of my pelvis was tilted, and it had gotten a lot worse after the hike! She told me that it can be caused from both legs sliding away in different directions on ice or snow, and it can contribute to a lot of the pain I’ve been feeling. She showed me a quick and easy way to get my pelvis aligned again, and after popping it back into place I felt a lot better – although it meant that I lost a week of running while I figured all of this out.

Um, maybe this wasn’t the best idea? Although it was fun at the time!

I was feeling so pessimistic last week, and also kind of freaked out about how easily I had been able to hurt myself in a totally different way. My right hip area really is weaker, and it shows in more places than one. However, my PT is still very adamant that I am able to start trying to run again right now. She even believes that I’ll be able to do my run/walk intervals during the Gold Nugget Triathlon in a month and a half. She seems to think that what’s holding me back (other than slipping on snow and ice while hiking and twisting my pelvis) is my fears about getting back to it. And I have to agree with her. I don’t feel pain during or after running, so if I stay off of the ice and snow until everything is melted I shouldn’t be this worried about it. Obviously if I feel any pain during or after running I’ll back way off – I’ve been through this too many times to make stupid mistakes again. Seriously, if anyone tells me to take it slow I’ll scream. But I’m in the best position to get back to running that I’ve been in for over a year, and I’m going to take advantage of this opportunity to try to ease back into it in a way that’s going to actually work.

Now for the really crazy news: after re-aligning my hip last week, my PT looked into getting my insurance to cover massages at the PT studio. However, she instead found out that I only get 25 sessions covered per year and not 25 sessions per “incident” like she originally thought. She was going to close out my chart and then re-open it after a few weeks to get me more sessions, but now she’s choosing to stop PT right now instead so that I can save my 10 remaining sessions for the rest of the year if I need it later. She’s optimistic that I’m ready for a surprise early graduation, but I’m so nervous to be doing this alone without her guidance and supervision twice a week! I’m so paranoid about getting back to running without another giant catastrophe happening, but I completely trust her expert opinion. I’m also noticing my new hip and ab strength in my day to day life – where I’d normally have SI joint pain, now I feel my abs working instead. So I’m going to deal with this unexpected road block by keeping up with my PT homework, trying Pilates at the gym, and staying the heck away from all snow and ice! I’m also going to tentatively try her super easy treadmill workouts twice a week until I’m feeling confident about running again. Coming back to running has been such a long and difficult process, but I’m definitely making progress and I need to focus on that instead of on my fears!

Have you ever had your alignment checked? What’s the craziest thing that has ever happened to you on ice or snow?